Video: Painting robot follows your eyes to create art
It鈥檚 no Picasso, but it鈥檚 a start. A robotic arm that can be controlled with your eyes has just painted its first picture: a simple image of a house, grass and the sun.
Developed by of Imperial College London and his team, the system takes a different approach to that used for other robot artists, which are simply programmed to draw. Instead of operating on its own, their bot extends the human body by providing it with a third, artificial arm. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the first step to human augmentation with additional limbs,鈥� says Faisal.
Art with a robot鈥檚 touch (Image: Sandrine Ceurstemont)
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The arm uses an off-the-shelf eye-tracker to follow a person鈥檚 gaze, sending instructions to an industrial robot arm depending on how and where the painter looks. Faisal focused on gaze gestures that could control the robot seamlessly, in the same way as picking up objects without thinking about how to move your limbs. The commands are able to move the arm instantly using, for example, fixed gazes and sequences of prolonged blinks.
Brushstrokes
As an example, a person can get the robot arm to paint a horizontal line by staring at a start point and then an end point. Sabine Dziemian, a student who provided the eyes for the first creation, says that she didn鈥檛 need any training. 鈥淚t feels natural to look where you want to draw,鈥� she says.
Painting is just the beginning. Faisal plans to swap the current brush grip with a robotic hand to allow it to manipulate objects, allowing the system to be adapted for paralysed people or amputees. Previously, the team developed a low-cost gaze-controlled wheelchair, which could be fitted with an arm to help with everyday tasks.
Gaze commands could also be sent over the internet to control the arm remotely, allowing immobile patients to perform tasks from their beds. Operators might use the system to control machinery at dangerous sites without being there 鈥� for example, to clean up chemical spills. 鈥淪ome people say it feels like telekinesis,鈥� says Faisal.
of the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, who is currently developing drones that follow a controller鈥檚 gaze, thinks a system like this is an obvious candidate for operating a robot. 鈥淕aze control will be integrated into cell phones and tablets within the next couple years,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t will soon become a part of everyday life.鈥�
